Applications of R in Government

Following the announcement of the US Government Big Data Initiative, I was asked to write a small article about applications of R in government. The article has just appeared in Government Security News (and I believe will appear in their daily newsletter tomorrow). In the article, I highlighted several R applications that been highlighted here in the blog:

• In the early days of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, NIST used uncertainty analysis in R to harmonize spill estimates from various sources, and to provide ranges of estimates to other agencies and the media.
• Before new drugs are allowed on the market, the FDA works with pharmaceutical companies to verify safety and efficacy through clinical trials. Despite a false perception that only commercial software may be used, many pharmaceutical companies are now using open-source R to analyze data from clinical trials.
• The National Weather Service uses R for research and development of models to predict river flooding.
• The newly-formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — freed from the restrictions of a legacy IT infrastructure — is championing the use of open-source technologies in government.
• Local governments are also building data-based applications. The SF Estuary Institute uses R and Google Maps to provide a tool to track pollution in the San Francisco Bay area.

For more on the emergive governmment drive to make better use of analytics, open source and Big Data read the full article at the link below.

Government Security News: Open-Source R software driving Big Data analytics in government